Rumor has it that Paul Thomas Anderson‘s follow-up to There Will Be Blood might be an adaption of Peter Bart‘s novella Power Play, which Paramount acquired in 1998 for producer Robert Evans to develop. Anderson’s official fan site cigarettes and redvines has now even picked up the rumor, which I heard from a source last week. Let me be completely clear: I have not gotten any official or even unofficial word that this is actually Anderson’s next project (ie for now take it for what it is – a rumor), but it does seem to have a history of truth.

The story follows a forward thinking Native American casino owner who decides to take on Las Vegas, and enters into a power struggle between established casino owners. When the project was first announced, Evans named Anderson as director and Jack Nicholson as a potential star.

“I’ve got P.T. Anderson very excited about adapting and directing it. Before he directed Boogie Nights, he covered the gambling terrain very convincingly with Hard Eight. I’m also giving it to Jack Nicholson, who is perfect for the main role,” Evans told Variety in 1998. “It’s an extraordinary story. The largest gambling entrepreneurs are not Trump or Wynn or Kerkorian — they’re the Indians. They operate the most profitable casinos in the world and most are not even full-blooded Indians — they can be one-eighth and still control the tribe, the land and the casino. If they made the worst deal in selling Manhattan for $24, they’re making up for it with a weapon more lethal than bows and arrows.”

It is impossible to write a story about this project without noting that the sale of Power Play was the subject to huge controversy in the late 90’s. Bart was accused of creating the 86-page novella in order to circumvent rules which prevent Variety reporters from being seduced by Hollywood while covering the beat. Basically, the idea was that Bart wrote a book to sell a screenplay. In 1998 Variety reported that Michelle Manning at Paramount Pictures had acquired the rights to the novel written by Bart, which was submitted under “a pseudonym to avoid any potential conflict of interest.”

A screenplay was later discovered with authorial credit to Leslie Cox (the maiden name of Bart’s wife), “Based on the novel by Peter Bart” and dated September 1996, two years before the sale of the book. The whole situation smelled like fish. Basically, Bart at one point ran Paramount with Evans, and writing a script certainly seemed like a conflict of interest. As is the whole idea of the trades if you ask me: Something like 90% of advertisements in trade papers like Variety come from the same industry they intend to cover. But I digress. Bart was suspended after Amy Wallace wrote about the incident in Los Angeles Magazine (you can read about the incident on Slate.com).

I usually like Peter Bart. I watch him every week on AMC’s Sunday Morning Shoot-out. He’s a smart guy who has been in the business for a long time. He’s a man who should be respected. So I’m always shocked to read his thoughts on movie websites. His latest rant on the state of movie blogs is unbelievably ignorant.

Bart is usually a very intelligent industry voice but today he has been reduced to a cranky old man who is unwilling to let go of the way things use to be. The industry must change, or die (as was/is evident with the music industry). Movie studios to embrace professional bloggers is a step in the right direction. Bart writes:

This, in turn, encourages some bloggers to wallow in non-stop rants as a form of self-promotion. Living dangerously is sweet revenge, they seem to be saying. To be sure, if a piece gets posted that proves instantly incorrect, or that places them in legal jeopardy, they can simply pull it down and pretend nothing happened.